Right and Wrong

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A Wisconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
March 1, 2009

By Bill Kraus

Judge Barbara Crabb has turned her relentless logic on our judicial elections. Our first exposure to this admirable trait was when she told the state of Wisconsin, in effect if not in fact, “You cannot ban gambling and indulge in it.”

Her ruling on the rules surrounding judges and politics is equally logical. The rules are that judges cannot run as partisans or do partisan things like make donations or join parties. Judge Crabb says, “Who are you kidding?"

She points out that most judges get the job in the first place by appointment. These appointments are made by governors who are partisans and are unlikely to stray far from their list of political loyalists when looking for candidates for these jobs.

Even those few judges who are elected to open seats do not come full grown from the brow of Jove. They have some kind of political history and credentials.

It follows then that any voter who is interested and semi-conscious will know where the state’s judges are coming from politically and ideologically.

The attempts to deny this reality started when rules about non-partisanship were promulgated in 1913. These were reaffirmed in 1968 and strengthened again as recently as 2004.

In the new world of special interest politics, Judge Crabb says, party affiliations are not the problem anyway. The remedy to this new, more powerful threat to objectivity is a combination of disclosure and recusal. A judge who takes a campaign contribution from, say, the organization that is interested in school choice should reveal that and recuse him or herself if, as, and when a case on this subject comes before him or her.

Well and good, even though it may cause some difficulty in rural Wisconsin, where a judge is likely to have a friend or contributor involved in a lot of otherwise routine litigation.

The problem with following the judge’s logic so literally and single-mindedly is it goes against the probably unattainable ideal we seek from judges: a kind of impartiality which approaches pure disinterest.

We don’t always get it. It may even be, like the song in Man of La Mancha, an impossible dream.

It is worth aspiring to nonetheless. It's something every judge should have as a goal or a code of conduct.

The excesses of partisanship are unavoidable in the legislative and executive offices where we vote for people who share our beliefs.

What we want when we enter a courtroom is not favor but fairness.

A dispassionate judiciary is a worthy idea. Overt partisanization is not.

Could be worse

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A Wisconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
February 22, 2009

By Bill Kraus

Members of the new Assembly leadership teams visited with the eclectic, outspoken, bipartisan Common Cause board of directors last week. We learned a few things. We hope they did as well.

Tom Nelson, the Assembly majority leader, gave deserved credit to the Speaker, Mike Sheridan, for the rule that fundamentally shuts down 99 fundraising operations while the budget bill is working its tortuous way to passage and signature. He acknowledged that this was a small step towards Wisconsin’s pristine past. He also pointed out that a reason it happened was that it could be and was done unilaterally and expeditiously.

The hope, of course, is that this is the first step in a journey of 1,0 00 miles to steal a JFK aphorism. Representative Nelson gave us no reason not to think it was.

In his appearance later in the meeting, Jeff Smith, the Chair of the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections, laid out his agenda. It included everything on the reform wish list and offered further assurance that it might be a pretty good year for reform ideas.

Without discouraging him, the board members asked about the reality of passing anything, no matter how worthy, that cost money in these dire economic times.

The BIG reform bill is propelled by doses of tax money that would go directly to candidates’ campaigns. More importantly, it includes the promise of additional tax money to discourage big spending by the third-party organizations and interests and millionaires who have been hijacking campaigns pretty willy nilly lately.

This has been a boon to the hired guns who are running these organizations and the TV stations that are the beneficiaries of their ad campaigns and a bane to the overwhelmed candidates who are their victims or, in the millionaires’ cases, their opponents.

The less expensive bill that would bring public money to judicial elections has a better chance because it’s more popular with voters who question the practice of lawyers giving money to judges. The fact that it wouldn’t go into effect this year when funding the state budget occupies positions 1 through 10 on the legislative agenda also improves its chances.=C 2

The transparency bill is even cheaper. It costs nothing, with the possible exception of a Supreme Court appeal. It would require everyone who wants to participate in political campaigns to play by the same rules. Candidates and parties have to tell everyone where they get their money. They also have to loudly proclaim their approval of the advertising being broadcast on their behalf. Third-party campaigns currently do neither of the above.

The fact that disclosure has also been the one and only reform idea that has always had the full support of the now minority Republicans put this in the slam dunk category.

“Not so fast,” said Mark Gottleib, the Assembly assistant minority leader, when he spoke to the board. The reasons for this reversal were not articulated but were surely signaled by former Speaker Heubsch’s failure to advance the disclosure bill passed by the Senate in the last Legislature, which was also never satisfactorily explained.

Free speech concerns have been expanded to require full protection of anonymous free speech which seems to have bumped this idea from the Assembly Republicans’ “will do” list. This is disheartening, but not fatal inasmuch as the disclosure-prone Democrats, whose funders are either well known or not afraid to be, are now in control of both houses.

This is not a proviso-free situation, however. The governor, who has always been a friend of anything-goes-free-for-all campaigning, is still in the mix. So far he has chosen not to bring the subject of reform up in two major speeches to the people and the Legislature; not a good sign. Can he be counted on to introduce, urge, or even sign what Representative Smith and his committee might give birth to? Don’t bet the farm.

Putting the minority-but-vocal Republicans and their tacit ally in the governor’s office aside, the pressure for campaign fairness legislation in Wisconsin, with economic restraints, seems to be higher than usual. Not stratospheric but not bad.

Good people and good government

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A Wisconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
February 15, 2009

By Bill Kraus

In this period when everyone is turning to and away from governments, when we are getting conflicting advice to do more, do less, or something in between, what comes to mind is the thought that what we really want is a government that works.

One of the special people who gave us that in Wisconsin for the last 50 years or so died last week.

His name was Wayne McGown.

He and serveral contemporaries like Paul Brown and Roger Schrantz, to name just two of many, served anywhere and everywhere in state government honorably and lengthily.

My first encounter in Madison with Wayne was when he was serving as Deputy Secretary of the embryonic Department of Administration for Warren Knowles. He became secretary of the department for a short while near the end of the Knowles era but quickly and happily rejoined his band of brothers who keep the Wisconsin government working.

The next time our paths crossed was when the hordes of Huns came to Madison from Stevens Point and other faraway places in 1978.

Despite our bravado we all secretly felt a twinge of doubt when we wondered if the place might come to a stop.

It wouldn’t. Wayne, Paul, Roger et al would keep the wheels turning.

They were, variously, working in jobs at places like the Department of Transportation, the Building Commission, and the University.

Wayne’s career culminated with a stunning achievement. He created, built, and managed Research Park, which promises to be the seed corn of Wisconsin’s economic future.

Due to a shortage of reporters in general and reporters with institutional memory in particular, Wayne’s passing and the “government that works” he helped deliver was not given its journalistic due.

I’m sure there is a succeeding generation of operatives quietly and efficiently at work today in state government.

Mourn the passing of a giant among you, and keep up the good--if under-noted and under-appreciated--work you do every day.